At a meeting with reporters re-cently, President Bush said that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." These were not the barbs of some neoconservative crank or sidelined politician looking for publicity. This was the president of the United States, invoking the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon.

最近在一項記者會中，美國總統布希說：「如要避免爆發第三次世界大戰，似宜注意防範〔伊朗〕擁有製造核子武器的知識。」這可不是什麼新保守主義怪人話中帶刺，或置身事外的政客想打知名度；而是美國總統召喚三次大戰的幽靈，如果伊朗擁有製造核武知識的話。

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconser-vative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ah-madinejad is "like Hitler … a revolu-tionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-po-litical culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

美國有關伊朗的討論完全脫離現實。布希常就這個話題向新保守派學者波霍雷茲請益，波霍雷茲曾寫道，伊朗總統阿馬丁加德「有如希特勒…一個革命分子，他的目標是要推翻現行國際制度，並以由伊朗主導的新秩序取而代之，再由伊斯蘭教和法西斯主義的宗教政治文化統治。」但對這驚人的論點，波霍雷茲未提出任何一丁點證據。

Here is the reality. Iran has an e-conomy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The U-nited States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against I-ran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the in-ternational system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order What planet are we on

事實上，伊朗的經濟規模和芬蘭相當，每年國防預算約48億美元；而且伊朗自18世紀末以來就未進犯過任何一個國家。美國的國內生產總額比伊朗大68倍，國防支出則高出110倍。此外，以色列和每個阿拉伯國家，除了敘利亞和伊拉克之外，都悄悄或積極結成反伊朗聯盟。但我們竟要相信，德黑蘭當局即將推翻國際體制，並代之以伊斯蘭─法西斯主義的社會秩序？我們到底是在什麼星球？

When the relatively moderate Mo-hammed Khatami was elected presi-dent in Iran, American conservatives pointed out that he was just a figure-head. Real power, they said (correctly), especially control of the military and police, was wielded by the un-elected "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now that Ahmadine-jad is president, they claim his finger is on the button. (Oh wait, Iran doesn't have a nuclear button yet and won't for at least three to eight years, ac-cording to the CIA, by which point Ahmadinejad may not be president anymore.)

當比較溫和的卡塔米當選伊朗總統時，美國保守派指稱，他只是虛位元首。真正的權力，尤其是對軍警的控制，仍操在非民選產生的「最高領袖」何梅尼手中，這點他們倒是說對了。現在阿馬丁加德當選總統，他們又說，他的手指已按在鈕上。（但等等，伊朗根本還沒有核子按鈕，而且據中情局指出，3至8年內也不可能會有，到時阿馬丁加德恐怕都已經下台了。）

In a speech recently, Rudy Giuliani said that while the Soviet Union and China could be deterred during the cold war, Iran can't be. The Soviet and Chinese regimes had a "residual rationality," he explained. Hmm. Stalin and Mao—who casually or-dered the deaths of millions of their own people, fomented insurgencies and revolutions, and starved whole regions that opposed them—were ra-tional folk. But not Ahmadinejad, who has done what that compares One of the bizarre twists of the cur-rent Iran hysteria is that conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.

「目前正角逐白宮寶座的前紐約市長」朱良尼最近在一項演說中指出，冷戰期間蘇聯和中國可以加以嚇阻，但伊朗不行。他解釋說，蘇聯和中國政府還「殘留一點理性。」這…史達林和毛澤東曾若無其事地下令害死千百萬人民，煽動暴亂和革命，並餓死整個區域反對他們的人民，他們竟被說成理性的人物。阿馬丁加德則不然，他做了什麼足以和史毛相提並論的事？目前這股伊朗歇斯底里症最匪夷所思的一大曲解是：保守派對歷史上兩大屠夫意外的慈悲。

If I had to choose whom to describe as a madman, North Korea's Kim Jong Il or Ahmadinejad, I do not think there is really any contest. A decade ago Kim Jong Il allowed a famine to kill 2 million of his own people, forcing the others to survive by eating grass, while he imported gallons of expensive French wine. He has sold nuclear technology to other rogue states and threatened his neighbors with test-firings of rockets and missiles. Yet the United States will be partici-pating in international relief efforts to Pyongyang worth billions of dollars.

如果要我在北韓的金正日和阿馬丁加德之間選一個真正的狂人，我想實在沒得比。十年前，金正日讓一場饑荒餓死兩百萬老百姓，還迫使其他活著的人民吃草充飢，他自己則進口無數加侖昂貴的法國美酒。他也曾出售核子技術給其他流氓國家，並以試射火箭和飛彈恫嚇鄰國。但美國仍將加入國際間提供平壤的數十億美元紓困計畫。

We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about. The U-nited States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact with the country's vibrant civil society. I-ran is a black hole to us—just as Iraq had become in 2003.

我們正走上一條不歸路，將和一個我們幾乎一無所悉的國家對抗。美國政府已有30年未派人出使伊朗。美國官員也鮮少和伊朗高層政治人物或官員會晤。我們和伊朗充滿生機動能的民間社會也很隔閡。伊朗對我們而言是個黑洞，就如2003年的伊拉克。

The one time we seriously negoti-ated with Tehran was in the closing days of the war in Afghanistan, in order to create a new political order in the country. Bush's representative to the Bonn conference, James Dob-bins, says that "the Iranians were very professional, straightforward, reliable and helpful. They were also critical to our success. They persuaded the Northern Alliance to make the final concessions that we asked for." Dobbins says the Iranians made overtures to have better relations with the United States through him and others in 2001 and later, but got no reply. Even after the Axis of Evil speech, he recalls, they offered to cooperate in Afghanistan. Dobbins took the proposal to a principals meeting in Washington only to have it met with dead silence.

我們唯一一次和德黑蘭當局認真談判是在阿富汗戰爭快結束那段日子，當時是為了重建阿富汗的政治秩序。布希出席波昂會議的代表杜賓斯說：「伊朗人十分專業、直率、可靠，樂於助人。他們是我們成功的關鍵，是他們說服北方聯盟做出我們所要求的最後讓步。」杜賓斯並說，伊朗人在2001年及其後，曾透過他和其他人主動表示要和美國改善關係，但一直杳無回音。杜賓斯回憶說，即使在美方發表邪惡軸心論調後，伊朗仍提議在阿富汗問題上合作。杜賓斯把這項建議提交華府一項重大會議上討論，結果仍如石沉大海。（取材自10月29日「新聞周刊」Fareed Zakaria專欄）